


not unflinching, but unfailing

by see_addy_write



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Bar fights, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 05:33:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18243380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/see_addy_write/pseuds/see_addy_write
Summary: Alex doesn't know how to feel about his boyfriend's brother, and things get a lot murkier before they get clearer.Or: Michael starts a bar-fight, Max breaks it up, and Liz and Alex try to support their boyfriends in impossible circumstances.Set post 1x09, in a universe where Isobel takes a lot longer to wake up.





	not unflinching, but unfailing

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a reference to a Jim Butcher quote: “When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching -- they are your family. ” 
> 
> I'm really interested in the Max and Michael dynamic in the show, and how what they did to Rosa affected their friendship. I also want Max and Alex to actually interact, so I wrote both of those things. 
> 
> In all honesty, this fic is probably a mess. I have strep throat, a fever, and I just wanted something that made me feel good to write, so this is what you get. i didn't even read over it a second time, so I'm sure typos abound. hopefully someone else gets some enjoyment out of it, anyway. :) 
> 
> Feel free to come flail at me on tumblr -- I'm seeaddywrite over there.

A month after Alex confronted Michael and he came clean about everything— where he came from, what he was, Rosa’s murder, all of it— they went public with their relationship. It was no big formal announcement; Isobel and Max already knew, as did Liz and Maria, and neither man felt they owed explanations to anyone else. They were happy, and their friends were happy for them. That was all that mattered.

So instead, they showed up at the Pony together one evening together on a Saturday night, arriving in Michael’s beat-up truck, and walked in holding hands. Maria grinned at them from behind the bar, flashing a wave in their direction before turning to the nearest customer demanding a drink and quelling him with a single, unimpressed lift an eyebrow. Maria Deluca was a force of nature, and Alex knew how lucky he was to have her on his side.

“Max’n Liz are in the corner,” Michael pointed out, shoving the black cowboy hat he insisted on wearing to the bar out of his face to nod at his brother, who nodded back with a small smile. “You okay to sit with them?” He was ignoring the stares pointed in their direction, but Alex could see the tension creeping into his shoulders. It was the same for him; he hadn’t gone back into the closet when he joined the military, but he’d been so discrete that most people had forgotten— and Roswell had a populace that was hardly forgiving of others’ differences.

“Yeah,” he agreed immediately, glad of the excuse not to think about the bystanders. He hadn’t gotten to see Liz much lately, as she was still frantically attempting to find a cure for Isobel’s cellular degeneration, and he missed her. Max was another story— he didn’t dislike the man, but had a hard time reading him. Some days, it seemed like he disapproved of Alex, and his relationship with Michael, and others it just seemed that he disliked him, despite the relaxed manner he adopted anytime Alex was around. It was confusing, and frustrating, and it had been easier just to avoid spending too much time with him. 

Max stood as they neared the table he shared with Liz, reaching out to clasp Michael on the shoulder while Alec hugged Liz in greeting. She smiled up at him happily, a glass half-full of amber liquid in one hand, before directing an impish gaze at Michael. “Long time no see, Mikey.“

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Would you quit with the cutesy nicknames already?” 

Liz grinned, bumping her shoulder against Alex’s when he took the seat beside her. Max was making no effort to stifle a smile, even as Alex covered his mouth with his hands. He needn’t have worried, though— Michael was smirking, too, obviously fond enough of Liz and their penchant for banter that he could overlook her teasing. 

“I thought we were going to have to pry you out of that bunker of yours. Alex must be magic to have gotten you out of there for the night, huh?” There was a salacious insinuation in her tone and raised eyebrows that made the tips of Alex’s ears feel hot, and he shot her a disbelieving look. 

Of course, Guerin had no sense of propriety and just smirked back at Liz, winking at her. “I’d definitely say certain parts of him are magic,” he agreed, giving Alex a pointed once-over that made him aim a kick at Michael with his good leg. 

“Seriously?” he managed, glaring at both of them indignantly. “Can you two behave, for once in your lives?”

“Yes, please,” interjected Max plaintively. “I really, really don’t need to hear anything about their sex lives, Liz. And, gee, not to change the subject or anything, but did you find anything while you were working, Michael?”

Alex would have almost rather to be teased mercilessly about his sex life than pick up that subject. Michael had been locked on his underground lab for the last week nonstop, sometimes with Liz or Valenti’s help, sometimes alone, trying to activate the alien tech from the ship and pods in order to help Isobel. Thus far, it had been a fruitless endeavor, and was frustrating Michael immensely. His temper had been short lately, and control of his powers weaker, at least in part because of his feeling of helplessness when it came to Isobel’s situation. The last thing he needed was to be forced to explain it all again to Max on his night off.

Alex was ready to jump in and remind the deputy that Michael was supposed to be taking a break tonight, but he didn’t get a chance before Michael shook his head curtly, and shared one of those looks with his brother that made Alex suspect that Max and Isobel weren’t the only ones with a telepathic connection. “Nothing useful, and I got tired of staring at a whole lot of nothing. Liz and I’ll be back at it tomorrow.” Without waiting for response or comment, he gestured with a thumb toward the bar. “I need a drink— anyone else?” 

“Just a beer?” Alex requested, while the other two shook their heads, waving their drinks as evidence. Normally, he would have offered to go with Guerin to the bar, but he’d been on his prosthetic all day and his knee ached in protest. Ditching the crutch made him faster, but definitely more sore by the end of the day.

Michael disappeared off through the crowd with a kiss to his cheek, and Alex glanced at the other two, expression serious. “Can we drop the Isobel talk for the night? He’s doing his best, and he’s putting enough pressure on himself with any help from you.” His gaze landed on Max, pinning him. It had been important in the military to learn how to look at people and get what he wanted, one way or the other, and that commanding air hadn’t faded for all he’d been back in the US for nearly a year. 

But Max was made of pretty stern stuff, and didn’t flinch or backdown. He didn’t look angry, either, which Alex supposed was a good thing. He only stared back, a hint of tension in the creases around his eyes and in the lines of his shoulders.

Liz was the one to break their staring contest, a hint of impatience in her tone. Alex didn’t look away from Max to find out if she was annoyed with both of them, or just him for saying what he had. “You going to tell us why, or just order us around?” 

That was fair. “You just said it, Liz. I had to pry him out of that bunker under the trailer. He’s exhausted, and frustrated, and he needs a break.”

Max raised sipped his beer and said nothing, a small muscle in the side of his jaw jumping with whatever it was he was holding back. That was the problem with Max, Alex knew. He was so used to keeping the big stuff to himself, keeping outsiders away and his family safe, that he couldn’t break the habit now, when Alex already knew the truth.

Or maybe he didn’t trust Alex. 

It didn’t matter. Alex was there for Guerin, who he knew did trust him, and he was making his point, whether or not it upset anyone. “Seriously. One night. You guys are obviously taking the night off— let him do the same.”

This time, Max’s jaw clenched harder than before, and he stood up from the table. “Excuse me,” he murmured to Liz, brushing a hand over her hair on the way to the men’s restroom. She watched him go with a frown, then turned back to Alec wearing a fiercer expression. 

“He’s been sleeping in that cave with Isobel,” she told Alex bluntly, her arms crossing over her chest in trademarked Liz Ortecho annoyance. “He’a got this idea if he never leaves her alone or stops reading to her, she’ll keep her memories. Plus, he can’t sleep at all if he can’t see her, since she’s not in his head anymore.”

Alex frowned, running a hand over his shorn hair. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you just implied that he’s taking a night off from being there for his sister,” Liz snapped. “And that he’s been pushing Michael too hard, or something. Do you know how long it took me to drag him out of the cave and get him to come home and even get something to eat?”

Even after knowing Liz for nearly twenty years, it still caught him by surprise how adamantly she defended her brand-new boyfriend. She had always been fierce in her protection of the ones she cared about— she’d once screamed down a homophobe that had tripped him in the high school cafeteria, and broken up with Kyle as soon as she realized how cruel he was to Alex behind her back. It was different, to have it turned on him, and Alex didn’t like it— but he’d been right to defend Michael, too.

“Then maybe we need to distract both of them,” Alex said, offering the best compromise he could. “I wasn’t trying to be a dick, Liz, but what am I supposed to do? Let Max run Guerin into the ground?”

“No. You’re supposed to understand that they’re both hurting and scared, and that it’s not Max’s fault,” Liz told him flatly, fingers toying with the rim of her cup as she stared back at him, dark eyes full of fire. 

Alex shifted in his seat, leaning closer to her. He hadn’t counted on pissing off one of his closest friends in Roswell that night, and he didn’t really want to mess with Max’s head, either. Michael wouldn’t thank him for it, and it wouldn’t help anything, in the long run. “Seriously, Liz, I wasn’t trying to be a dick, okay? I’ve messed up with Guerin so often lately, and he’s gotten hurt. A lot. Is it so bad to want to protect him from more of the same?”

There was a short moment of silence as Liz considered him, but her body language relaxed and her expression softened somewhat, so he figured he was in the clear. “No,” she admitted softly, and rested a hand in the crook of his elbow where it rested on the table. “That’s— that’s what I’m trying to do, too. For Max. So I guess we’re on the same team again, huh?”

Alex smiled, honest relief in the expression. “Always.” 

There was a commotion by the bar in that moment; a redneck in a straw hat and an ancient pair of Levis landed on the floor, hard, and shoved himself back to his feet, face purpling with rage. When Alex looked up to see what had happened, Guerin stood with his back to the bar, his fists clenched so hard at his sides that Alex could see his knuckles blanching white from his seat twenty feet away. “The fuck did you just say?” he demanded, loud enough for the entire bar to hear. 

“I said we don’t want your kind in here!” The man bellowed, and charged at Michael before Alex had even properly finished assessing the situation. 

The next few seconds were a blur of exchanges blows, Maria’s orders to “calm the fuck down! Both of you!” and the jackass’s taunts as he landed a solid punch in Guerin’s face, making him spit blood all over the floor. 

Alex shoved of his chair and began pushing toward the crowd around the two combatants, his shoulders tense and expression set in anger and frustration— why the hell wasn’t anyone else trying to stop them? Surely they couldn’t be this used to Michael’s bar fights? And why hadn’t he thought this through? Of course they were going to get hassled on their first night out in public together. Of course nothing in their entire relationship could just be easy and pain-free. Their first night together had ended in his father shattering Michael’s hand with a hammer; what had he expected of their first real date? Roses?

Before he could get to Guerin’s side, however, Max was in front of Alex, pushing him back into the crowd quickly enough that there was no time to tell him to go to hell. He was gone in another second, sliding in between the two men who were still fighting. He dodged a blow from the drunk guy with surprising ease and grabbed Michael’s shoulder, wrenching him away mid-lunge, and yanked him back to the wall of the bar, muttering something too quiet for anyone else to hear. Michael spit curses at him, blood still trickling from his nose and split lip, but Max handled it with the deftness of someone used to breaking up Michael’s fights and ignoring the fury that followed. 

“Fuck you, Max,” Michael spat at his brother, shoving him out of the way and making for the door in a storm of stomping feet and obvious anger. Alex blinked after him, starting slightly when Liz touched his back. He’d forgotten she was even there in all the chaos. 

“Throw another punch and you’re going down for assault,” Max said loudly, his hard gaze on the man across from him who was cracking his knuckles like he was pissed enough to take on a cop, too, if it meant being able to follow Guerin and get in another shot or two. “Get the hell out of here, Jackson. I should be hauling you into county lock-up right now, and this is the only leeway you’re getting.” When the man didn’t move, Max's eyes narrowed and he started toward him with a purposeful stride — and finally, Jackson, knowing better than to test the patience of an angry deputy, made for the door. 

Max turned to watch him go, presumably making sure he wasn’t following in the same direction as his brother, and Alex finally had a moment to get angry. Max had pushed him back into the crowd, away from the fight, like he was some girl in need of protecting rather than the seasoned vet he was. Who the hell did he think he was? What right did he have to jump to Michael’s side? Alex was his boyfriend, for fuck’s sake. And that jackass had been slinging hate speech around; Max couldn’t even begin to understand that. He had no right to interfere with Alex.

“What the fuck, man?” Alex charged forward while Liz turned to Maria, apparently starting to help her reset the glasses on the bar that had been overturned in the fight. “Why’d you do that? You didn’t need to get involved. I could have stopped him.” 

There was a beat of silence, and finally, Max turned to face him, arms hanging deceptively loose at his sides. “I’m a cop, Manes. Jackson only stopped because I threatened to lock him up, and you don’t have that advantage.” The calm tone made Alex feel violent. He got that Max was used to handling his siblings, talking them down, but Alex wasn’t one of them. 

“What is it, huh? You think since I’m missing a leg I need you to step in and protect me? Newsflash, Evans. I don’t need your help. I could have stopped Michael, and probably managed to keep him here instead of letting him storm out bleeding.”

Max winced openly at that, and glanced out the door again, as if trying to make sure Michael was okay. “Look,” he said after a minute, low and swift. “He was going to be pissed at anyone who broke up that fight. Jackson’s an ass, and he had it coming; believe me, I know. But someone was going to have to stop him, and I figured it was better me than you, right now.” The taller man trailed off for a second, his gaze sharpening as it landed on something over Alex’s shoulder. Liz’s face, he was willing to bet. “Michael’s been pissed at me since we were seventeen. It’s nothing new. But he needs you right now.” 

Surprise quickly superseded Alex’s anger. He’d been expecting some sort of speech about a cop’s duty, or an admittance that yeah, Max did think Alex needed protecting, somehow, or even just stony silence. His temper would have completely snapped at any of those options, but Alex hadn’t been prepared for blunt honesty. Not from Max, and certainly not in public — even if most of the Pony’s patrons had gone home for the night. 

Liz took advantage of Alex’s stall to slip around him and go stand next to Max and wrap her arm around his waist. The man smiled down at her, obvious love in his eyes, and it was suddenly hard to remember why Alex had been so ready to punch him himself just a moment ago. 

“If you’re going after him, let him know there’s — supplies, at my house, if he’s in pain.” Supplies. . . acetone, Alex translated mentally. “He knows where the key is, and I won’t be there, so he doesn’t need to worry about that,” Max continued, his own arm coming to land across Liz’s shoulders. The woman glanced up at him, obviously ready to argue, but bit her tongue at the unwavering expression on Max’s face. Glancing around the faces at the bar, she frowned, then opened the door and ushered them outside, away from prying ears and any of Jackson’s friends who felt like trying to defend his honor. 

The cold air of New Mexico at night was shocking after the warmth of the bar and the heat of the moment, and Alex closed his eyes for a second, adjusting, and letting his temper cool completely. “I’m sorry,” he said after a moment. “I shouldn’t have assumed you were trying to be —” 

“An overbearing ass?” Max suggested, smiling slightly when Alex cracked an eye to look at him. “Don’t worry about it. I should have said something. I’m used to being the one to pick Michael up when he’s been fighting, and it’s just habit.” He gave Alex a thoughtful look. “It might be time to form some new habits.”

The affirmation that at least Max understood Alex was sticking around for the indeterminable future was strangely gratifying, and he found himself nodding, a smile playing around the corners of his lips. “For the record? You’re his family. Whether the two of you have been acting like it or not. So he does need you.”

The startled expression on Max’s face made Alex chuckle as he turned toward the parking lot, scanning for Michael’s truck. Even as pissed as he may have been, he trusted that the other man wouldn’t have left him at the bar without a ride. He saw what he was looking for, called a distracted goodbye over his shoulder, and started toward Michael. 

***** 

An hour later, they were in Max’s house, Guerin seated on his coach as Alex picked pieces of glass — apparently from a shattered beer bottle, and how had he missed that? — out of his bare shoulder. Michael was drinking acetone straight from a bottle of nail polish remover, and even knowing what it was for, Alex still had to struggle against the impulse to panic and knock the human poison from his hand. 

“So, we gonna talk about this?” Alex finally asked, when the silence had grown too heavy between them. His hands were steady and gentle as they guided tweezers toward the final piece of glass he could see. 

“What’s there to talk about?” 

The response was predictable, but it irritated Alex. “How about what that asshole said?” he suggested, fighting to keep his tone even. “Or why you felt the need to start throwing punches when he said it?” 

His hands were knocked away from Michael’s shoulder, and the man in front of him turned to stare at him, incredulous. “You’re kidding,” he said flatly. “He called you — fuck, Manes, I wouldn’t let him get away with talking about anyone that way, let alone you. Trust me, he had it coming.” 

“You realize you can’t punch everyone in this town that says nasty things about us, right?” Alex understood the urge, probably better than anyone else in this town. He’d lived with the judging eyes and muttered comments for his entire adolescence, and back then, he’d been just as willing to fight as Michael was now. But he’d grown up, grown desensitized, and realized that the only actions he could control were his own. Besides, he’d been through far worse than a few slurs thrown his way by a couple of hicks who hadn’t managed to figure out that there was a whole world outside of Roswell, New Mexico. “It was bound to happen when we stopped pretending there was nothing happening between us.”

“Are you seriously lecturing me about fighting right now? What the hell, Alex? I don’t need that from you — Max beat you to it. About a hundred fucking times over the last ten years. So can we just forget about it?” 

No, they couldn’t. Alex knew he wouldn’t be forgetting about it any time soon. He hated seeing Michael hurting, and fights just seemed like his way of taking out his hurt and frustration on the world. He could, however, tell that talking about this right now was getting him nowhere, and he didn’t want the evening to end with Guerin storming out again. 

“If that’s what you want,” Alex said with a sigh, and risked reaching out to comb his fingers through Michael’s curls, trying to get some of the defensive tension to leak from his body. It worked, to an extent. As always, the other man pushed into his touch as if hungry for more, but he still looked wary, as if he expected Alex to change his mind and start lecturing about the dangers of fighting or something. “Just remember that watching you get hurt hurts me, okay? And I don’t think Max enjoys breaking up your fights anymore than you like him doing it.” 

That was, evidently, not the right thing to say. Michael bristled again, glaring at Alex. “No one’s ever asked him to!”

It wasn’t a surprise that Max and Michael’s friendship was a sore spot for the other man. Alex had known that going in, even understood why, a little. They’d both lost parts of themselves, when they covered up Rosa’s death, and the secrets they’d taken on to keep that one buried had forced a friendship Alex had once envied into an uneasy alliance, instead. Neither man seemed to know how to act around the other, even now, when they obviously needed each other. 

Alex sighed, and reached out again, grabbing Michael’s good hand and squeezing. “I know that, Guerin. I just — I was pissed at him, you know. He shoved me back behind people so he could make it to you first, and I thought it was some macho, protective thing, like I can’t look after myself.” 

Michael said nothing, but he was listening and hadn’t pulled his hand away, which Alex counted as a win. 

“But it turns out, he knew how pissed you were going to be. Apparently, he thought it would be better if it was at him than at me. That was the same time he told me to remind you about the acetone here, and that he’d be sleeping somewhere else — which, according to Liz, is in the cave with the pods, where he’s been sleeping every night.” Alex kept his recounting as succinct an emotionless as possible, trying to figure out exactly what he wanted out of this exchange. To make Michael realize that he wasn’t as alone as he sometimes seemed to think, maybe? To remind him that he did have a family here? 

It was highly possible it was just selfish. Alex wanted Michael to be happy, in a way that the other man never really had been before, and it seemed like a good first step to that was getting his sister back from her pod and healing her — but Alex couldn’t do that. That burden was on Liz and Michael. So that left step two to him: showing Michael that the friendship he’d shared with Max in high school was still there, buried under layers of secrets and barbed comments, resentment and guilt. 

“Liz told you Max is sleeping in the cave?” It wasn’t the part of his explanation that Alex had planned on Michael fixating on, but he nodded. “Yeah. She said she thinks he’s afraid she’ll forget everything if he leaves her alone for too long.” 

Michael winced at the idea, and Alex tugged him in by the hand, refusing to stop until he was tucked between the ‘v’ of his thighs. He’d ditched the prosthetic almost as soon as they got to Max’s, no longer worried about his lover seeing the truth of his scarred body, so the positioning was a little awkward, but he made due. “You and Liz will get her out of there soon,” he promised, infusing the words with as much confidence as he could muster. “And in the meantime, you and Max need to stop . . . antagonizing each other and work together. You’re family, right? That’s what you said, when you told me about all of this.” 

There was a long moment of nothing, but finally, Michael nodded against Alex’s chest, sighing. “I guess none of us really get to choose our family,” he said with a wry chuckle, and Alex snorted his agreement, refusing to let thought of his father darken the evening. “Max knew about us, you know. Since high school.” 

That brought Alex up short, and he stared down at the top of Guerin’s head with wide eyes. “You told him?” It didn’t matter anymore, he reminded himself fiercely, ignoring the sting of betrayal the idea brought. Everyone knew now, so it shouldn’t have mattered — but it did. Michael had promised not to tell anyone, and the idea that he’d broken his word, even ten years later, bothered Alex. 

“Fuck, no.” Michael shook his head. “I might have, if we hadn’t —” Carefully sidestepping mention of Rosa, the other man continued, “But I didn’t. I had no idea he knew until after Liz came back and we had a big blow up about Izzy mind-warping her.” He paused for a minute, then looked up at Alex, gaze intense and stormy. “He asked me how I would have felt about him, if he’d been the one to make you leave, like Iz and I did to Liz.” 

There was absolutely no reason for him to ask, but Alex couldn’t hold the question back. “What’d you say?” 

Michael caught his eyes and held them, his hands finding purchase at the dip of Alex’s waist and holding tight. “That if he’d been the one to make you leave, I’d hate him.” There was a tiny shudder, like an instinctive reaction to the remembered pain, against Alex’s chest, and his arms tightened convulsively around the man he loved, trying to avoid getting lost in that thought himself. “Saying shitty stuff to each other and then pretending it never happened is kind of our thing.”

“Don’t you think it’s time to stop?” Alex asked softly. “It’s not the three of you against the world anymore, Guerin. You don’t have to hold each other accountable for your sins. And I think you’d both be a lot happier if you stopped trying.” He half expected Michael to snap at that, to shove him away and tell him to mind his own damned business, but the man in his arms just sighed again, head tipped onto Alex’s shoulder, then lifted his face to kiss him. 

Like every kiss they ever shared, this one turned hot and demanding fast. Michael’s hands were on his waist, shoving under his t-shirt, and Alex found his own wandering over the plains of his bare back, skimming the damp skin there. It’s good, but there’s something off — Guerin’s distracted, his attention lingering elsewhere. Alex doesn’t mind; he’d like to think he gave Michael something to think about, where Max was concerned. There was always time for making out, and they would have plenty of time together when all of the uncertainty of Isobel’s predicament was behind them. Alex could be patient. 

Sure enough, a moment later, Michael was drawing away, muttering a curse. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly, leaning his forehead against Alex’s and struggling to regulate his breathing. Alex let him, his palms still resting on Michael’s cheeks and stroking the stubble at his jaw with the pads of his thumbs. “I want to — shit, believe me, I want to. But Max can’t be fucking sleeping in that cave, and if Liz didn’t drag him home, I’m going to have to. Otherwise, Isobel’s going to wake up and kill me for letting him do something that stupid.”

Alex chuckled, and pressed a lingering kiss against Michael’s forehead. “It’s fine. Go get him. Just don’t expect me to go with you — there’s no way I’m hiking anywhere tonight.” He gestured at the prosthetic and sleeve they’d taken off and put under the coffee table pointedly. “I’ll just crash on the couch until you guys get back.” It was probably weird, to invite himself to stay over in someone else’s house, but he didn’t think Max would mind — and even if he did, Alex could always say Michael had invited him. That would probably end the discussion fairly quickly. 

“Sounds good to me,” Michael agreed, yanking his t-shirt back over his head and grimacing when he noticed the bloodstains. “We’ll be back soon. Just. . . don’t change your mind while I’m gone.” He glanced at Alex through his lashes, and the vulnerability was hard to miss. Alex wasn’t sure exactly what he meant — change his mind about the fighting? About being okay with Michael going to get Max? About being okay with Michael, in general? There were too many possible questions, and the answer to all of them was the same: 

“I won’t.”


End file.
